People talk about breaking paradigms. I’m not sure anyone in modern times has shattered them, ground them to dust, then paved over them like Dear Leader.<\/p>\n
\n
It occurred to me that he’s essentially broken the underlying assumptions that form the fabric of public society.<\/p>\n
He’s discovered that the only thing stopping a person from doing whatever the hell he wants is caring what others think of him. If you don’t care about being seen as honest, then why bother being honest? If you don’t care about being seen as kind, then why be kind? (I’m assuming the “you” here is a sociopathic narcissist, of course, not any sort of normal person).<\/p>\n
Trump loves spectacle. If he lived in Oklahoma and earned $50k a year, he’d probably own a jacked pickup truck and go to monster truck rallies. He’d awe his buddies by pulling stunts like driving the wrong way on freeways or riding on the roof of his own truck.<\/p>\n
But he’s a billionaire, so he builds gilt buildings and acquires women and runs for president. Three years ago he essentially said to someone “Hold my Perrier” and kicked off a presidential campaign. People kept expecting him to fall off the roof of the truck, but he somehow managed to keep the show going this long.<\/p>\n
The hillbilly version of Trump would get arrested and thrown in the drunk tank, but Billionaire Trump can get away with things because rich people can do that.<\/p>\n
When people around him try to exert control, they’re doing it like they would if he was Bill Clinton. Bill did crazy things, too, but he wanted to be liked by his peers, he wanted to at least be seen as trustworthy, so when people slammed him for sleeping around with interns he reacted, he tried to justify himself . . . or pretend it didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
Trump doesn’t care about the fabric of trust and honesty and expectation that ties most of the society together. He reminds me of a nihilistic teenager who might get drunk and jump off a bridge for no reason other than that he can’t see why it matters.<\/p>\n
We’re watching Trump prove that a rich person with no ties to society can essentially get away with anything. He’s the personification of every paranoid thought I’ve ever had about rich people not caring about anyone else.<\/p>\n
People keep thinking if they just point out VERY<\/em> CLEARLY<\/strong> that Trump just did or said something outrageous, he’ll come to his senses, but he literally doesn’t care; so long as the adrenaline rush keeps up, he just plows ahead.<\/p>\nHere’s my deeper fear. (By the way, I’m not by any means the first person to say this, I’m not claiming the slightest originality…)
\nMy fear is that the Trump Show is being used as a distraction, a red cape waved in our faces while truly evil humans slide even further into power in our society.<\/p>\n
Sleight of hand on an absolutely grand scale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People talk about breaking paradigms. I’m not sure anyone in modern times has shattered them, ground them to dust, then paved over them like Dear Leader. It occurred to me that he’s essentially broken the underlying assumptions that form the fabric of public society. He’s discovered that the only thing stopping a person from doing … Continue reading “…can essentially get away with anything…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-commentary","tag-rant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-hC","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":159,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=159","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":0},"title":"Corpse Falls Into Traffic in Texas","author":"Jorah","date":"July 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"DALLAS (AP) -- The body of a Louisiana man strapped to a gurney fell fromthe back of a pickup truck Tuesday onto a south Dallas highway and intothe path of oncoming traffic. \"I didn't think it was possible for that tohappen,\" said Mary Ellen Douglas, who was driving to work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1219,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1219","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":1},"title":"What is a great example of coincidence?","author":"Jorah","date":"December 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In the early 1980s, I was hitchhiking from Massachusetts to Virginia to attend a wedding. My brother dropped me off at the junction of the Mass Pike and route 495 that morning, and, about ten minutes later, a trucker picked me up. I rode with him all the way to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=54"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":709,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=709","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":2},"title":"What are some of the great examples of coincidence?","author":"Jorah","date":"February 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My answer to the above question, posted on Quora... In the early 1980s, I was hitchhiking from Massachusetts to Virginia to attend a wedding. My brother dropped me off at the junction of the Mass Pike and route 495 that morning, and, about ten minutes later, a trucker picked me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=54"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":163,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=163","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":3},"title":"I think I might hate the word "actual."","author":"Jorah","date":"July 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a co-worker who starts many, many sentences with one or the other of two phrases: \"To tell you the truth,\" or \"To be completely honest with you.\"Now... any repetition grates on me (long story) but inanities like these really get to me. I fully expect that my co-worker\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1445,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1445","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":4},"title":"Rage and gender norms","author":"Jorah","date":"January 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I may be starting to figure out why people are so often panic-stricken (and frequently enraged to the point of violence) by others who don't comply with gender norms. I believe that it is because the norms are fragile, but also something we've been taught to measure our identity against.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1001,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1001","url_meta":{"origin":1092,"position":5},"title":"Mostly Chimera","author":"Jorah","date":"December 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"If you look at Julia's original design, you'll see that the pattern came in two versions; as fingerless mitts and full mittens. When I showed the pattern to my intended recipient, she loved the design except for the garter ridge around the upper part of the mitten and on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_CPR5QWKZNwg\/TQVbC_XjmpI\/AAAAAAAACz0\/IR-G4qbQgQg\/s288\/Chimera-Mittens-2010-a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}